Setting Goals in 2010

There’s something about being on the cusp of a new year that really inspires dreaming big—which is what we, as a company, are all about! I see 2010 as holding so much potential for our clients. There will be even greater opportunity for brand building and storytelling around our brands, and for harnessing the power of networking to reach as many people as possible. I want to urge all of our clients to set lofty goals for themselves in the coming year:

How many speaking engagements they’ll do.

How many media appearances will they make?

How many key relationships do they want to build?

How many local, regional, statewide and national victories do they want to achieve?

Once they have these yearly goals in crystallized, numerical form, we can work together to create the strategy that will generate these results. Then we’ll break that down to a monthly punch list of implementation.

With our business clients, it’s all about setting goals for how they want to build community around their brand.

How many individual lives do they want to impact this year?

How will they measure those outcomes?

How many stories do they want to focus on to demonstrate that impact?

How many people do they want paying attention to all of the above by the end of 2010?

Of course, our company also has its own goals. Storytelling is going to be a very big focus for me in 2010. I also plan on increasing the number of business clients that we work with (using marketing to articulate core values and define company culture internally and externally). We want to pick up more large-scale clients in some of our niche industries, such as real estate and construction, healthcare, technology, and consulting/coaching.

Coming out of a difficult economy and tough global outlook, it will be important to treat one another well in 2010 and to remain steadfast to our own core values of integrity, synergy, brilliance, creativity and joy as we continue to grow. We’ll be walking away from some old clients who no longer share those values (not easy to do, but necessary!) and be on the lookout for others who are a better fit for what we offer. We have goals of expanding our design division to work with more comic books, movie posters, and illustration/animation. We’re also looking for a two or three highly successful individuals looking to use their personal story (memoir) to have a global impact. More specifically, we want people who are already successful in their industries, but who want to become pioneers through investing in our book development and publishing process.